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© PAP/Piotr WittmanThe whale was winched out on Tuesday.
A 20 ton whale which was beached on the Baltic coast in northern Poland was lifted out of the water on Tuesday afternoon.

The first crane brought in on Tuesday morning turned out to be too weak to lift the dead aquatic mammal.

However, the second machine completed the task. It was no easy feat however, as gases which had accumulated inside the animal over the last couple of warm days posed a risk of the whale exploding.

Marine biologists from the station on Hel Peninsula were called out on Saturday to deal with the dead whale washed up on one of the sandbanks near the locality of Stegna, eastwards of Gdańsk.

It is suspected that this might be the humpback seen some months ago in the Gulf of Gdańsk.

The conditions in the partly shallow gulf are far too difficult for whales, and this one probably couldn't find its way out on to the open water.